Poetry yawned, rolled over and sat up on the edge of his cot in the moonlight, looking like the shadow of a big fat grizzly, yawned again and said, “I think I’ll go get a drink. I can’t seem to remember whether I got one the other night or not. Want to go along?”
I quick was sitting up on the edge my own cot, and demanding “Oh no, you don’t!”—saying it so loud it could have been heard inside the Collins’ downstairs bedroom—and was, on account of a second later a thundery voice boomed out across the lawn from the window near the telephone, “Will you boys be quiet out there? You’ll wake up your mother, Bill. I’ve told you for the last time!”—which is one of the most interesting sounds a boy ever hears around our farm.
Poetry was still thirsty, though, so I said, “I’ve had years of experience pumping that pump. I know how to do it without making it squeak. I’ll get you a drink, myself.”
With that, I crept out of bed and moved out through the moonlight toward the pump platform.
That’s when I heard Pop talking to somebody—to Mom, maybe, I thought—and moved stealthily over to the living room window to see if maybe he was saying anything about Poetry or me or about the exciting experiences we had had capturing Muggs McGinnis.
But say! Pop wasn’t talking to Mom at all, but to Somebody Else—to the best Friend a boy ever had and the Most Important Person in the Universe, the One Who had made the stars and the sky and every wonderful thing in the whole boys’ world. I’d heard Pop pray many a time at our dinner table and in prayer meeting at church, but only once in awhile when he was all by himself.
It seemed like I ought not to be listening but I couldn’t move now or Pop’d hear me, so I waited awhile—and part of his kind of wonderful prayer was:
“... Pour out Thy love upon Muggs McGinnis, and upon all the lost boys in the world. Help them to find out in some way that Christ loved them and poured out His blood upon the cross for the forgiveness of their sins....
“Bless our son, Bill, and our precious little curly-haired Charlotte Ann, so filled with play and mischief, and help Mother and me bring them up to love Thee with their whole hearts, and to always try to do what is right....”
Mom must have been right there beside Pop, cause when he finished, I heard her say, “Thank you, Theo. I can go to bed now without a worry in the world. I’ve given them all to Him.”